For Project 52, here is my chosen picture of Mr R. I wasn’t totally happy with any of my photos this week but I picked it because of the facial express. It’s not a typical smiley picture, but that look is very Mr R at the moment – slightly defiant and cheeky. That’s actually my toast he has there and he is looking stern because he does not want to give it back! He is a typical two year old at the moment, wanting to test out his boundaries. I find all his little expressions so cute, so it’s nice to have a range of pictures not just the very smiley ones because all these sides of their personality are what make them who they are!

For the Better Photo Project this week our topic is editing in PicMonkey. I normally tend to use fotor for my basic blog photo editing, making collages, pinnable images and all that kind of thing so this was a good challenge for me as I do keep meaning to try out PicMonkey a little more. I’m just so comfy in fotor that I don’t stray from it too much as I can work very quickly in there. For photo editing I really don’t do a lot though, I tend to just use the one-tap enhance and go on my way! So trying out some more of the effects and features in PicMonkey was quite fun.

Here are some of the effects I tried.

This is a focal soften. I do really like the focus effects in PicMonkey and hadn’t realised those options were there until I read this weeks Better Photo Project on Love All Blogs, although I wanted to try “fancy focus” and it’s a royale effect. Shame – I don’t know whether I’m ready to pay at the moment being still predominantly a Fotor user. I will have to think about it and see.

This one is B&W Focal. Not the most ideal photo for this effect really, as there was no area of striking colour. It would have been more effective had he been in red wellies or something so I could have left the red. But fun to play with to get that colour splash effect.

This one has been both boosted and softened. Boosted to about 43% and softened to about 75% if I remember correctly. You can move the sliders up and down to get the different intensities of the effects until you’re happy with it. I’m not sure whether I am happy with the above, perhaps the boost is a bit too much??

This one is Sepia with Mr R’s name added as part of an overlay. Being able to change the blend modes is something which I do miss in Fotor, and is a good feature on PicMonkey. Reminds me of those days back in the late 90s early 2000s when we all used to make our forum signature graphics in photoshop and overlay brushes and textures on to pics of our celebrities to make all the “cool” effects. I was quite into that during my early teens (sure I’m not the only one :p)

I also tried some of the effects on another pic, as I wasn’t sure which one to choose for my project 52. I didn’t go for this in the end as the overall shot looks too busy, even though it’s nice to capture them playing unaware of the camera. This is the original. It’s a sibling pic again with Mr T and Mr R! (See our January Siblings project photos here)

I applied the soft focal effect to this too, focusing just on Mr T’s face and I actually do really like that effect – if only there was not so many toys thrown on the floor in the background. I suppose I could have edited those out too using a clone tool if I wanted to spend the time! I think clone may be a royale effect on PicMonkey? We have it for free on Fotor though!

So on to the next effect, and I experimented with the focal effects a bit more although I do think the overall effect below is way too much. I have used a Focal B&W effect like the one used with my other picture above, in addition to a Focal pixelate effect. The focal pixelate is actually very cool and I’m sure will come in handy at some point. It would have looked better on it’s own without combining the colour splash type effect but I was just experimenting with them!

Next is the pictured just softened up to 75% on the slider:

Then in Sepia to 48% :

Boosted to 38% :

And with a spotlight effect:

That’s all my experimentations for now! I did play around with making simple graphics adding frames, text and that kind of thing like what I use for blog graphics or Pinterest images and I have to say, for now for that I just can’t move away from Fotor. It’s so much quicker as I don’t really know what I’m doing in PicMonkey so get frustrated as it takes longer. Plus a lot of the effects I prefer are in Royale. I’m sure I will give it another go at some point though.

What do you use to edit and play around with your photos? and what do you think of the different effects here in PicMonkey? The focal edits are definitely going to be the most useful thing for me. I can see that coming in handy and I will definitely go back just for that.

On a slightly related vein if anyone has any recommendations or thoughts about where is the best place to edit photos or images which supports Arabic text and fonts please do let me know in the comments. I would massively appreciate that!

22 Comments

I hate it when my pics never turn out , I like them to be bright with little background and clear to see what I was intending to focus on, I usually tend to turn pics that dont look so great in black and white or take them to an editing page where i can sort them out till im happy x

I really like the experimentation you are doing with the photos – it’s always great to challenge yourself and learn new skills and improve on the ones you already have – it’s a great linky and can’t wait to see more of your photography 🙂

How cool I love the idea of play with photos – I sometimes do it just because I feel like it but I don’t really know what I am doing. xSarah Bailey recently posted…Win with Models Own and the Dogs Trust

I do use picmonkey but mostly for collages, or creating pinterest text photos. I rarely use the other bits as I’d usually do what ever I wanted to my photos upfront before uploading them, but I really should take a bit of effort to do some more. Editing photos takes so long though, quite often I’d just like to keep a straight shot as I just don’t have the timeEmma T recently posted…365 Photo a day – Week 2, days 5 to 11

i use pic monkey a lot for my photos on the blog and it is good to have a play around if you have the time. Your son has such lovely hair! xjenny paulin recently posted…Garlic Naan Bread (52 cookbooks #2)

Ah thanks for joining in again – I do love a bit of Picmonkey – the atuo adjust exposrue being my fave as it just give a subtle but needed tweak. I’ll have to check out Fotor now!Love All Blogs recently posted…Is this it?

I had fun with this week’s project and will be trying it out more through the week – I like your experiments and that you’ve talked us through what you did with each shot. Looking forward to seeing more.Eliza_Do_Lots recently posted…The Better Photo Project – week 2; editing

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